


i can tell just what you want

by thisstableground



Series: less than ninety degrees [2]
Category: Do No Harm (TV), In the Heights - Miranda/Hudes
Genre: And the sickfic is Ruben having the sniffles, Character Study, Dysfunctional Family, Friendship, Getting to Know Each Other, Grief/Mourning, Minor Character Death, Multi, Pre-Relationship, Sickfic, The character death is Usnavi's parents, The dysfunctional family is Vanessa's
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-03 08:02:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21176093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisstableground/pseuds/thisstableground
Summary: Usnavi and Vanessa have their routines long since settled over a lifetime, but they don't mind making a little space for the new guy in town.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter one: Ruben has a sick day and a friend, both of which are new experiences for him.  
Chapter two: Usnavi, living his life one coffee at a time.  
Chapter three: Vanessa, making sparks.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruben has a sick day and a friend, both of which are a first for him.

When Ruben wakes up with a completely blocked nose and a sensation like all his bones have been encased in concrete, his first thought is not so much a word as it is a cartoon thought bubble with a sad raincloud in. He has a cold.

It's not so bad. The thing about a cold is, it’s a specific kind of feeling shit that _everyone_ gets sometimes. A cold sucks a normal amount. Normal people get to wrap themselves in a blanket and mope around on the couch because they have the sniffles, not because their life has been smashed to pieces under them. Normal people take a couple of painkillers for a sinus headache, not because they’re more stitches than skin and the healing hurts. They call their mothers to complain about their itchy throat and hear comforting things about getting enough rest and looking after yourself, not like the other week on That Anniversary when Ruben had to stay on a call with her all day so that her voice could cut through his hallucinations for him. 

Ruben doesn’t get a lot of normal. And since he doesn’t have a job yet, there’s not even any guilt making him drag his ass out for a twelve-hour lab shift like he used to. He can just stay home and watch baking shows in his pajamas and feel pathetic in a very temporary way. He’s actually looking forward to it, which probably _isn’t_ how most people feel about being ill. Has he ever even taken a sick day in his adult life? Not that he can remember. Unless you count however long he’s been off since he got back to America last spring, but to call that a sick day seems like calling a cold Friday in the Antarctic “a snow day”.

He takes his quilt and pillows off his bed to put on the couch in front of the TV, like Mama used to do for him when he was taking a day off school, then throws on a pair of sweatpants over his pajamas as a half-hearted attempt towards respectability before he leaves the apartment. He's going to do this properly and well-medicated, which means heading out to the store for supplies: cold medicine and cough lozenges and tea and way more comfort food than he can probably justify.

“Hell of a party,” Usnavi observes when Ruben shoves it all on the counter “Feelin’ rough, buddy?”

“Yes,” Ruben says. and sneezes six times into the crook of his elbow. “Guhh. I’m sick.”

“Sure seems it,” Usnavi says, looking startled by the sneezes. “Here, have a tissue. You sure you got everything you need here? I got my phone, d’you want me to look up your symptoms for you and see if there’s anything else? Have you got a doctor in town yet? You should really make sure you do, just in case.“

“I know someone, yeah,” Ruben says. Not really lying, even though he’s talking about himself and Usnavi doesn’t know that Ruben’s a doctor. “It’s nothing serious, I’m just feeling sorry for myself.”

“You should still—“

“Don’t mind Usnavi,” Sonny says, with a suffering look at Ruben that conveys the stress of years of dealing with a fussy cousin. “He gets very nursey. I can’t even clear my throat near him no more in case he tackles me to the ground and WebMDs me to death.”

Usnavi shrugs happily like _you got me _and starts ringing Ruben’s items up. When he’s finished he waves him off, but not without calling “and get some sleep!” when Ruben’s at the door. Sonny yells “feel better soon!”, and Ruben leaves the store smiling. Going to the bodega always cheers him up, a little moment of successful smalltalk to start the day. Ruben isn't usually the type to stand around conversing with cashiers because he’s unrelentingly bad at it, but he feels like he knows where he stands with Usnavi.

That sentiment is revised around noon when Ruben’s intercom makes an Unwanted Noise at him. Instinctively, he turns the TV off and hides under his quilt. If he’s very quiet and ignores it, they’ll go away. Shit, but he’s actually got a couple deliveries coming, and if he doesn’t answer he’ll have to go to a sorting office and talk to a human and that sounds like a true nightmare. Besides, better to know now than later if someone far less welcome that the UPS guy knows where he lives.

Whatever he’s expecting to hear when he picks up on the second buzz, it’s definitely not Usnavi’s voice trilling out a chirpy “yo, it’s me! Hi! This _is_ Ruben’s place right?”

“It…is, yes?” Ruben says.

“Ruben with the black coffee, cinnamon no sugar? You never actually told me your last name. Uh, it’s Usnavi, by the way. From the store? I wear a hat?”

“I know who you are, Usnavi. I’ll buzz you in.”

It’s an automatically polite response that Ruben immediately regrets, because he was enjoying his day of wallowing in mild self-pity and now he’s going to have to say words and be a person, and who needs that, but too late now because Usnavi’s knocking on his door and chattering away the instant Ruben opens it.

“_Man_, am I glad I got the right apartment number, I was worried when you didn’t answer at first because it was totally a guess, I knew you was in this building and I remember before Noa left town she said she's subletting to guy moved in from Philly so I took a guess that you were in her old place but I wasn’t sure ‘cause its still her name on the label next to the buzzer, but then even if you changed it I guess I wouldn’t know your last name anyway.” He says it all in one breath, ending on a dazzling smile. Not even winded. Impressive.

“It’s Marcado,” Ruben says. He’s not sure anyone could fake the total lack of verbal filter Usnavi has, so if he was here for any nefarious purposes he probably would’ve accidentally told Ruben about it weeks ago, but it’s still sort of unsettling to have someone show up at your home when you had no idea they knew where you lived. In lieu of any appropriate reaction making itself apparent, Ruben blows his nose. “Do you…wanna come in, I guess? Shouldn’t you be at work?”

“I’m on lunch,” Usnavi says, coming in, and now Ruben notices he’s got a tupperware container in his hands “Usually I’d stay in the store but Sonny’s got it handled so I thought I’d come check in on you, see how you were doin'. You still feeling shitty? Do you have a temperature?”

He secures the box between his hip and his right hand to reach out with his left, like he’s about to press it to Ruben’s forehead to check for a fever. Ruben very nearly makes a Marcado-shaped exit hole in the opposite wall of the hallway. Usnavi jolts backwards too, surprised at the sudden movement, then hastily says “oh, damn, I’m sorry, I shouldn’ta —“at the same time Ruben says “sorry, I didn’t mean to—“. They both pause to let each other talk for a beat too long to be comfortable, then simultaneously try to apologize again before falling into a shuffly, throat-clearing silence.

Well, this is agonizing.

“Sorry,” Usnavi says eventually.

“I don’t do touching,” Ruben says, still against the wall. “It’s not weird.”

“Never said it was.”

“I just don’t like it. Lots of people don’t.”

“Hey, it’s cool, I can respect that,” Usnavi says. ”Sorry, man, I ain't always think before I do. My bad. It won’t happen again.”

That’s all, just “no”, “okay I won’t”? That can’t be all. There’s always a catch. Ruben waits for it, but it doesn’t come, like the sudden end of a hiccuping fit: he doesn’t _want _it to happen again, but the gap where it should happen is an unfulfilled anticipation and he doesn't like it. There’s _always_ something. “Why are you here?”

“Oh!” Usnavi holds up the tupperware container. “I brought soup! It’s chicken, no noodle because they go mushy when you recook ‘em but you can always add some if you got any. You only bought junk at the store, not that I got any room to judge another man’s snack habits, but I thought you should get something that’ll do you some good too.”

As if to prove Usnavi’s point, Ruben’s body chooses this time to hit him with a series of sneezes so intense that it makes him dizzy. “Wrghl,” he says once it's over, to nobody in particular.

“Looks like I showed up just in time,” Usnavi says, eyebrows scrunching up. “You should sit down, if you tell me where your pans and shit are I can warm this up for —“

Ruben’s face must give away some of his feelings about a guy he barely knows rummaging around unsupervised in the one room in his apartment that holds the highest quantity of sharp objects, because Usnavi makes the kind of teeth-clenched wince face that you get watching someone faceplant the sidewalk in front of you and says “oh, mierda, I did it again, didn’t I? That’s a weird thing to do when you’re in someone’s house for the first time? Is it weird that I’m here? Vanessa says I can come on a little strong sometimes. Lo siento. How about we start this again: hi Ruben, I bought soup, end of sentence.”

He holds the tupperware out to Ruben, who stares down and doesn’t even think to take it just to be polite.

“…Why?” he asks.

Usnavi tilts his head, surprised. “S’just what anyone does, ain’t it? I know you live here by yourself and you don’t really know no-one in town yet, and it ain’t right leaving someone on their own when they’re sick and don’t got nobody to check up on them.”

“It’s just a little cold,” Ruben says. Usnavi’s really just here to check up on him? To be nice? A bunch of mental cogs try to turn in directions they aren’t accustomed to and make a confused crunching noise in his inner monologue.

“Yeah, well, Sonny wasn’t wrong, I do get nursey,” Usnavi says, ducking to hide under the brim of his cap then peeking out again with a slightly embarrassed grin. “Perils of bein’ friends with me.”

“But we’re not friends,” Ruben says and instantly realizes how rude that sounds when Usnavi’s face falls. “Ah, crap, no, I just meant…you didn’t have to go to all this trouble for me, you hardly know me.”

“Nobody don’t know no-one till you start getting to know them,” Usnavi says. Ruben decides not try to unpack that sentence. “F’rexample, I did this and now I know your full name is Ruben Marcado, great name, and that you have literally six thousand plants just in the entryway so I’m guessing you’re some kind of woodland sprite, _that’s_ a fun fact to know, and you wear plaid jammies, very cute. So I learn a few things out of this experience, you get a meal, everyone gets something and it ain’t much trouble to get a box out the freezer and walk three buildings down anyway. Except can you maybe take the box? It’s very cold, my fingers are numb.”

“Do you always have emergency soup in the freezer for whenever a vague acquaintance has a cold?” Ruben take the frozen box, first pulling his sleeves down to cover his hands to minimize the chill which seeps through the fabric pretty quickly anyway.

“This is from the last time I got sick, Camila always makes way too much. Way better fresh but she’s gone to lunch with Dani today, I’ll get her to make you some later. Have you met Camila yet?”

“No, so don’t ask her to make soup for a total stranger, I don’t need people thinking I’m an entitled dick before they even know I exist.”

“Oh, Camila won’t mind, ‘specially not if I promise to help out chopping veg and whathaveyou,” Usnavi dismisses with carefree gesture. “Besides, she already knows who you are.”

“She does? How?”

“I told her about you,” Usnavi says, like it’s obvious that a random early-morning customer is in any way worth mentioning outside of work. “We can bring it over tomorrow when I’m done at the store and I’ll introduce you, it’s about time you started meeting folk other than me in our fine city. I mean, only if that’s cool with you, or am I just bein' a pain in the ass? You can tell me if you want me to not come back, I promise I won’t be offended.”

Having Usnavi in his apartment is like being visited by a very kind tornado. Ruben’s totally lost his footing, and for some reason isn’t nearly so distressed by this as he thinks he should be. In fact, he thinks he’s kind of enjoying himself? Which doesn’t make sense? All they’re doing is talking. Maybe it’s all the cold medicine addling his brain, which is probably also why he says “no, sure, come over again,” before he gets a grip and adds “uh, maybe some warning though? I don’t love unexpected visitors. No offence.”

Usnavi shakes his head, self-deprecating. “Batting a thousand here, ain’t I? First time you meet me I’m yelling my ass off enough to scare the crap out of you, and now I’m in your apartment putting my hands all up on your face like you invited me. Sorry I'm such a dork."

“I'll forgive you if the soups as good as you say,” Ruben says, “Do you…we could, um, we could exchange numbers? Maybe? Then you can let me know when you’ll be here tomorrow, or if you can’t make it, or. Y’know. If you wanna drop in some other time or whatever.”

“Ooooh!” Usnavi says, passing his phone to Ruben. “Exchanging numbers? Dropping in? Sounds like someone’s already gave in to the Power of Friendship. Oh, password’s one-eight-nine-two, that’s my birthday. There, now you learned something about me today too.”

“Yeah, I learned that you’re a prime candidate for identity theft, I hope you don’t use that for any of your other passwords,” Ruben says, tapping his details into Usnavi’s phone then calling himself from it to get Usnavi’s number before handing it back. “But seriously, this was really nice of you. Thank you. Really.“

Usnavi beams at him and says, “I better get back to the store. Make sure to eat all of that, okay?”

Fifteen minutes later, Ruben’s back on the couch with his hands wrapped around a steaming mug, and he’s thinking very hard about its contents. Camila, whoever she is, brings Usnavi this soup when he’s sick, enough that he has it going spare. Usnavi did the same for Ruben. Ruben’s got no point of comparison, but is this how normal sick days work: someone other than your mom caring about how you are, checking in, filling in the little gaps where you forget to take care of yourself with real meals or sleep or kindness? Usnavi says that’s just what you do for people, that it’s what he does for his friends. Is _this_ how normal friendships work?

Ruben doesn’t get a lot of that. Seems too good to be true. He wouldn’t mind knowing more.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Usnavi, living his life one coffee at a time.
> 
> Content warning: very brief grief-related stuff after Usnavi losing his parents.

Light and sweet is how Usnavi’s always made his coffee, is how Usnavi’s always preferred it, ever since the first time his pai put a half-full mug on the table in front of him at breakfast on his seventh birthday.  
  
“You’re old enough now to know about this,” says Pai, fixing Usnavi with a slow, serious stare.  
  
“Mateo!” scolds Usnavi’s mamá. “He shouldn’t be drinking that, you’ll get him all wound up. Anyway, he’s far too young to need the energy.”  
  
“Rosa, De la Vegas do not drink coffee because we _need_ it. We drink it because we know el secreto.” Pai reaches across the table to tap Usnavi’s nose. “And now you are ready to know it too, mijo.”  
  
Pai is whispering, so Usnavi whispers too: “what secret?” he asks, leaning in. He’s seven years old now. He’s ready to know _everything_.  
  
“People are like coffee,” his dad begins, holding his hands up like they’re framing a picture. This is how his dad starts a lot of sentences.  
  
“Ay, dios mio, this again,” Mamá mutters, running the faucet to clean the breakfast plates.  
  
“You can learn everything there is to know about someone from how they take their coffee, Usnavi. Your mamá, for instance, she misses the heat back home, so she always adds some cinnamon. And I take extra sugar since I met her, because she makes my life so sweet.”  
  
Mamá turns around to flick water at him, but she’s smiling.  
  
“That line won her over when I asked her to go out with me,” says Pai in a confiding tone. “Take it from me, Usnavi. There are people who say, oh, you shouldn’t add la leche, o el azúcar, you shouldn’t do this or that.”  
  
Usnavi is wide-eyed, nodding seriously at this new and amazing wisdom. His father pushes the mug a little closer to him, and says, “Those people do not know that the only way to make a perfect coffee is to make it with love - because then you will _understand_ their order, not just _know_ it.”  
  
“Your father is a hopeless romantic,” Mamá tells Usnavi, rolling her eyes. “It’s okay if you don’t want to drink it. Mateo, he's too young, I don’t think he will like the taste.”  
  
Usnavi _isn’t_ too young. Usnavi is seven years old, and he knows the secret now. He takes a cautious sip. Oh. “Wow,” he says, and tastes it again. “_Wow_.”  
  
“I knew he’d like it,” says his dad triumphantly. “I made it just how it suits him: light and sweet.”  
  
***  
  
Usnavi all through childhood and far into his teens gets similar reports home from school: a kind boy but not clever, not brilliant, academically falling far below average but smart in his own way, by which they mean smart-mouthed. Talks too loud and too excited and he never can sit still, no matter how much they try and make him.

“I blame all that caffeine you gave him as a little one, Mateo,” says his mamá. “I told you he didn’t need the extra energy.”  
  
Actually, Usnavi only drinks two cups a day. One made by Mamá with breakfast, one made by Pai after dinner. Only more if they have friends over. Guests drink out of whichever mismatched patterned cups are nearest on the shelf, but the De la Vegas always use the same cups every time: green for his mamá and blue for his pai and bright, bright red for Usnavi.  
  
Despite their criticisms his teachers usually like him, and despite his friends teasing that _Usnavi never shuts up _most people don’t seem to be genuinely bothered by it. Maybe they know the secret too: it’s not caffeine that makes Usnavi talk so fast and move so much. It’s just that he’s so full of love, for his friends and his parents and his fire escape, for everything in his barrio and for the Dominican Republic far far away. He can’t keep it all inside. It trips off his tongue in freestyle and it flows from his hands when he’s working in the store. His customers all sigh in satisfaction when he hands them their drinks and they say “your papá taught you well.”  
  
***

Usnavi’s almost eighteen, the sun is almost rising, and he’s already had far more than two coffees today. They all tasted wrong, burnt and stale the way it always is from machines, the way it always is in plastic cups. Paper cups still aren’t ideal, but it’s what they use at the bodega, because they can’t exactly afford glass or china for everyone to take away and the slight dry rasp is better than plastic aftertaste.  
  
The Rosarios drove him home from the hospital. They’d stayed with him all day, all night. He’s already had far more than two but he goes to brew another anyway, because it always calms him down in a way that doesn’t quite make sense and because he doesn’t know what else to do. Mechanically he moves through the motions, a practiced sort of dance, until he automatically pulls three mugs - green and blue and red - down from the cupboard and then he just _stops, _staring at them lined up in front of him.  
  
“Hey, hey, come on, Usnavi, siéntate, come sit.” Camila has him by the shoulders and is steering him to sit at the kitchen table. Kevin is in the other room, talking quietly to someone on the phone. Nina takes over making drinks. Usnavi wouldn’t have been able to make it right today anyway. Perfect coffee is made with love, and usually he’s overflowing with it, but today he’s empty, today he has nothing.  
  
Nina’s pushing his red cup into his hands - her own and the one she’s made for Camila are both the mugs they save for guests, she knew not to use the others. It’s a nice gesture, Usnavi knows, and somewhere under all the numbness he’s grateful, but the first sip still tastes wrong. She’d hurried the process of making it to get it to him faster. It’s not sweet enough, and instead of _light_ it’s only weak.  
  
Something rushes through him all of a sudden and he throws the mug against the wall. Nina flinches, then immediately comes to wrap him in a hug.  
  
“They’re gone,” he sobs. “They’re gone.”  
  
“I know,” is all she says, and rocks him softly. The only thing he can focus on right now is the two cups still on the counter, green and blue together, and Usnavi’s cup all red and smashed up on the floor.  
  
  
***  
  
A few months later, when the store is in Usnavi’s hands and he’s grown a little more used to what life will be like from here on out, Abuela Claudia brings him coffee in the bodega. It seems unnecessary, considering he’s not exactly in short supply, but still, it’s desperately needed these days. He never used to be this tired.  
  
“Gracias, Abuela,” he says. It wasn’t necessary, but the gesture makes him feel a little less run down anyway. Everyone’s been so good, everyone’s there for him as much as they can be but it doesn’t change the fact that he always gets up alone before sunrise now so that he can get to the store in time. There’s almost never customers at half past six, but that’s the time they’ve always opened and he isn’t going to change that. Nobody slides a bright red cup across the table to him while he eats breakfast any more.  
  
Abuela Claudia presses her hands to either side of his face and gives him a long, inscrutable look. “You make sure to drink that,” she says finally, letting him go. “I made it exactly right.”  
  
“I know, Abuela,” he says, and he’s not smiling big but he’s smiling for real. “You always do.”  
  
She ambles back to her apartment but stands on the stoop even though it’s cold out, watching from a distance. Usnavi takes a sip. It tastes a little different to usual, which is strange - Abuela Claudia really does always make it _exactly_ the same each time.  
  
He lets it linger in his mouth on the second sip to try and pinpoint the change. Right amount of milk, the right amount of sugar. Not scalded or overbrewed. It tastes like maybe she just added slightly more grounds than usual: still light, still sweet, but just a little stronger.  
  
When he looks over to Abuela Claudia, she waves and calls out, “Paciencia y fe! How’s the drink?”  
  
There’s a little hum of energy in him that came on too quick to be caffeine. It doesn’t fill him head to toe like the way it used to. It’s something, though. Usnavi’s always stayed standing somehow, he can get back up when he falls.  
  
“It’s perfect, Abuela!” he shouts back. If anyone knows the secret that his pai taught him, it’d be her.  
  
***  
  
The way he misses Abuela when she’s gone isn’t _less_ than his parents, but it doesn’t shatter him the same way. They had been so young, and so had he. Abuela’s death was a shock, but far less so, and even though he grieves for her and misses her every day, she taught him too well for him to wallow.  
  
The barrio is full of love, the same way as Usnavi: things change too much, and people will always leave, but that part has stayed true so far. If he’s sticking around to tell Abuela’s story, he’ll tell it with his actions, and he does. He channels her love all through into his work and though less people these days actually say “your papá taught you well’, he knows it to be true whenever they get that look on their face after he hands over their cafe con leche.  
  
The barrio is full of love and Usnavi never doubts it, and he knows his place within it, but Jesus, he wishes he could experience that look from the other side just once, because nobody here knows how to make a _goddamn_ drink properly.  
  
They’re too impatient to wait (Sonny), or they leave it way too long (Benny), or they roll all the beans in toxic waste before they grind them (Vanessa, probably. Usually Usnavi can identify someone’s problem, whether it’s the temperature or the grind or the water or whatever, but he has no _idea_ what Vanessa does to hers to make it taste like that. If he took the ‘perfect coffee is made with love’ a little more literally, he’d have to assume she hated him).  
  
Usnavi will never, ever tell any of them that they’re bad at it. They try so hard, he doesn’t have the heart: he’ll drink every drop of every cup that comes his way from one of his friends, but he usually tries to intercede with offers to take over before they have the chance. Everyone lets him, because he _is_ the best at it. Eventually, it's automatic that he’s on coffee duty even if he’s the one visiting them.  
  
It’s absolutely a relief that he’ll probably never have to drink Vanessa’s hell juice ever again. But it's still kind of a pain in the ass when Benny swings by at closing time so they can go chill at Usnavi’s apartment, and Benny immediately falls all over the couch with a loud groan saying “I need an energy boost”.   
  
It’s been a long day for both of them and Usnavi’s been on his feet for all of it, but Benny is taking up all of the space. “I guess I’m just s’posed to stand, then?”  
  
“I’ll scoot over when you’re back with the coffee,” says Benny, face first in the cushions.

“Wow, assume much? I keep this whole barrio fueled all day and this is how you talk to me. Nobody ever brings _me_ coffee.”  
  
“Usnavi, that’s because you hate our coffee,” says Benny patiently, lifting his head off the couch.  
  
Fuck! He’s been caught! “¿Qué?” he says , attempting to look casual and sincere. “That’s absolutely not at all true, who told you that? You all…do such good coffee.”  
  
“Please stop, you know it physically hurts me that you suck so much at lying'.” Benny squints at him. “Jesus, don't tell me you honestly thought you was fooling us? We’ve known you for years_,_ and you’re kind of ridiculously easy to read.”  
  
Usnavi wilts. “You’re just…I just don't understand how so many people can be so collectively _bad_ at such a simple thing? I could do it when I was _eight_.”  
  
“We ain't all got your magic touch, I guess,” says Benny. “You still won’t tell us how you do it.”  
  
“The secret ingredient is love,” says Usnavi. He tells them that every time - he’s long since given up trying to give actual practical advice because he knows it never sticks. They probably don’t believe this answer, either, even though it’s true. Really, he doesn’t mind too much, because turns out that’s the secret ingredient to a _lot_ of things and he’s never felt lacking for it in any other way.  
  
But man, it’s been way too long since someone else made him a drink right.

***

Ruben’s order surprised him on the first day they met. There’s rare moments where Ruben’s confident side peeks through the weight of everything that’s happened to him, and Usnavi thinks he can see the cinnamon that reminds him of Vanessa. That part makes sense. Except where Vanessa likes her spiced-but-light, Ruben takes his black. It ain’t that Usnavi is against that, it just doesn’t quite _fit_.

It bothers him way too much: how can he get Ruben’s order perfect if he doesn’t understand it? “Is it like a weird self-denial misery thing?” he asks, because that's the only thing he can figure.  
  
Ruben laughs into his paper cup. It’s messy. “I'm not that melodramatic,” he says, wiping his face on one sleeve. “Don’t read so much into it. I’ve just always drunk it like this ever since I was a kid.”  
  
“But…why?”  
  
“It’s how Ma always took hers,” Ruben shrugs. “Guess it made me feel like a grown-up to copy her. I usually have lattes, actually, when it isn’t me making it. Black coffee is best if you brew it right, but most places don’t know what the hell they’re doing and you gotta drown out the burnt taste with half a gallon of creamer.”  
  
“Do I make it right, then?”  
  
“Why do you think I keep coming here instead of a place with actual tables?” Ruben kicks his feet out where they’re swinging off the counter.  
  
“Cheap? Literally on the same block you live on? Hoping to strike up conversation with the cute barista?” Usnavi suggests.  
  
“All of the above,” says Ruben. “But also, genuinely the best coffee I’ve ever had. I’m impressed. What’s your secret?”  
  
Usually when people ask that question, Usnavi just says _love, _but for some reason the compliment threw him for a loop this time. “Oh, uh, I mean, there’s no real trick to it. Like you said, creamer or milk can cover a lot of mistakes so you gotta put in a bit more thought when it’s black. Less margin for error. But it’s really just about bein' a little more careful and paying a little more attention, you know?”  
  
“Well, looks like the extra effort is worth it,” says Ruben.  
  
“Yeah,” says Usnavi, watching Ruben closely. “It is.”  
  
***

Although yeah, he’s old enough and busy enough now that he does actually need the energy, he still remembers being seven years old, learning coffee truth from his pai, so Usnavi takes great care to properly _appreciate_ at least one of his several drinks through the day. Usually this is the one he takes on his midday break: doesn’t hurt to show yourself a little love every now and then, he reasons.  
  
It’s one of his most sacred moments. This makes it a bit disconcerting one day when Ruben comes in and slides behind the counter, holding two ceramic mugs that are clearly his own and passing one over to Usnavi.  
  
“You know I can get that here myself, right? I don’t know if you noticed, but it’s kind of what I do,” asks Usnavi, taking it from him anyway.  
  
“Yeah, but that’s _work_,” says Ruben. “And it’s 12:15, which means this is your break, which means you shouldn’t work, which means I bring you coffee. That’s how it is.”

Well, shit, if this is gonna be a regular occurrence that means that Usnavi’s going to have to sacrifice the joy of those fifteen quiet minutes in the middle of the day with a perfectly made café con leche that he can actually savor. And he won’t say a goddamn word about it, because whatever new horror Ruben is about to inflict on him is outweighed by how nice a gesture it is, and by Ruben looking a bit like he expects Usnavi to knock the cup out of his hands and yell at him. What choice is there, really? Ugh. The things Usnavi does for his friends.

He prepares to make his _oh damn this is great_ face that apparently nobody else ever buys, but maybe Ruben hasn’t figured out yet, and takes a sip.

Wait.  
  
Fuckin'...wait.  
  
He’d expected too much milk or not enough, since Ruben never has any at all in his own, and too much sugar or too little because Ruben only knows cinnamon. It’s maybe no surprise that it’s not bitter if Ruben’s used to black but it doesn’t go too far in the other direction like he thought it probably would.  
  
Check a second time. Yeah. Definitely not overbrewed or scalded. The beans are a little stale, but then Ruben drinks at the bodega so often that he probably doesn’t get through them very fast at home. It’s cooled just enough on the walk over, hot but not blistering.  
  
Usnavi is kind of aware that he's not said anything for way too long and that Ruben is eyeing him with a sort of bemused concern. It’s just-  
  
The bell above the door rings and he’s dimly aware that it’s Benny but forgets to actually greet him. Like, it’s not as good as his dad’s or Abuela’s and definitely not as good as Usnavi’s, but-  
  
“Man, what did you _do_ to him?” Benny asks Ruben. “He’s literally never stopped talking since I met him til now. Tell me your secrets.”

“I made him coffee,” says Ruben. “So this doesn’t usually happen? I wasn't sure if it was just a thing he does.”

“Benny,” says Usnavi. Ruben startles a little next to him. “_Benny_,” Usnavi repeats more firmly.

“Yeah?”

Usnavi leans across the counter with what he just _knows_ are wide, vaguely crazy eyes, grabs Benny by the shoulders, and whispers, “_this coffee is good_.”

“…Holy _shit_,” says Benny, awestruck.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vanessa, making sparks.
> 
> Content warning: Vanessa's mom's alcoholism and how it affects their family.

Vanessa age seventeen spends the fourth of July on the rooftop of Abuela Claudia’s building with Nina and Usnavi. Abuela is the one who bought off the superintendent with homemade capuchinos, but once they’re up there she just leaves them with a pile of blankets to sit on and goes back inside as if she knows they might need space. There's so much space up here. Usually there would be so many of them here for the celebrations, Benny and the Rosarios and the De la Vegas and Abuela. Sometimes even Vanessa’s mom, though that’s never a guarantee. But Benny and his mom are away for the weekend, and the Rosarios are both working the night shift at the dispatch. Vanessa’s mom said she wasn’t in the mood. The De la Vegas are...well. Y'know.  
  
Usually the roof would be full of noise, but instead Nina sits on one side of Usnavi and Vanessa on the other. They each hold one of his hands and whisper under the popping and screeching of the fireworks about where they might be watching from this time next year, or the one after, or in ten, about all the places they plan to go.

Vanessa and Nina and Usnavi are all fuse lit ready to take flight. Nina was a NASA rocket preparing for launch from the top of a fire escape ever since she learnt to read. It frustrates her that she can’t go to college straight from high school, she tells them, that even with scholarships it’s too much money for now. Her parents keep working harder just like she always has done and she knows she’ll get there one day. Vanessa doesn’t doubt her.  
  
Usnavi’s turned all-targeting-systems direct missile strike course for the Dominican Republic, though where he’ll ever find the money for it nobody knows. He’s still trying to get his feet back underneath him since his parents died six months ago. He smiles again sometimes again now, he's started talking more again, but Vanessa worries sometimes he’ll never be as happy as he used to. The thought scares her in a deep, hollow way she doesn’t entirely understand and she firmly shuts it away so she doesn't have to deal with it.

Vanessa doesn’t know where she’s gonna end up when she leaves. Someone struck a match under all three of them but the other two know where they’re headed and Vanessa has the uncomfortable feeling that she’s a firework herself, no destination other than up and then outward in glorious self-destruction. She can feel sparks crackling under her skin all the time, itching like a never-ending allergic reaction.  


***  
  
Vanessa at nineteen feels a lot like she’s about to explode, most of the time. She sneaks into the club on a fake ID to dance off all the pent-up sensation, and if that doesn’t do it she sneaks boys back to her room while her mom is more unconscious than asleep. The elevated train masks the muffled noises while she lets loose some of the constant pressure that always seems to be building and building inside her.

Boys are fun while the night is fully dark. But even though the ones who catch her eye always have some depth to their smiles, have more to say than just copied lines they rehearse to perfection, they’re always boring in the morning, fast fading afterglows of the bright light trails they tease across her body in her room the night before. They get grayer by the hour the longer she lets them stay: dull washed-out figures leaving via the fire escape in the first pink-gold suggestions of sunrise, so most of them are gone before the dawn.  


Vanessa feels desaturated in the daytime too, staying up far too late on worknights and yawning while she sweeps the salon floor. She isn't a morning person at the best of times.

“And how is my cheeriest employee today, looking oh-so-happy and well rested?” Daniela sings.

Vanessa leans her forehead uncomfortably on the handle of the broom and says “uuugh”.  
  
Dani clicks her tongue at her. “Don’t think I don’t know why you are so tired, tengo ninguna simpatía. But! I am a good, kind boss, so you may go and get us all café, instead of scaring los clientes away with that face of yours.”

“_Uuugh,”_ Vanessa says even louder, taking the cash Dani is holding out to her and stomping to the bodega, but she doesn’t really mind. Usnavi in one of his endless selections of red shirts is a scarlet beacon from a mile away and he radiates pure caffeine. His aura is contagious: she feels a little more colorful as soon as she walks in the store, she feels a little more awake.

***

There’s boys everywhere that think her confidence is a challenge to them personally, who try to keep her weighted down from the freedom she feels when she lets herself strut with their stares and shouts and the _incredibly_ wrong assumption that she wants their gormless, sweaty, Axe-scented bodies all up in her sheets.

“Men are such cabrones,” she bursts out the second she slams through the door.  
  
“Tell me something I don’t know,” agrees her mom from the couch, raising her beer in solidarity. It’s only half past one but Vanessa’s too buzzed on indignation to comment. “Hope you showed him where he stands.”  
  
“Threw my drink in his face,” she says.  
  
“That’s mi niña cohete_,_” says Mom. That’s what she’s always called Vanessa, her firecracker kid, in these rare sweet moments when Vanessa feels like all the rage that she can’t seem to keep inside isn’t such a bad thing, is something she can own.  
  
“Just a shame to waste Usnavi’s coffee like that,” she says. “And that it wasn't hotter.”  
  
Her mom laughs, but of course the moment doesn’t last long.  
  
“The boys wouldn’t yell after you so much if you dressed a little…you know.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Vanessa snaps, immediately aggravated. She hates how easily riled she gets when she knows her mom doesn’t mean to sound the way she does, but she can’t stop herself. Their relationship is a two decade paper trail of thoughtless comments and selfish acts and empty bottles, none of them on their own a big deal but they all seem to collect together somewhere just underneath the surface and over time she’s run out of space to keep them, so that even the smallest thing brings them all rushing upwards like a volcanic eruption. “Why's it my fault if they're gonna be pendejos?”  
  
“I’m just saying, Vanessa, people will talk.”  
  
“So let them,” she says fiercely. “I ain't ashamed of who I am.”  
  
“You don’t need to get so _angry_,” Mom says, frustrated, rubbing her temples like she’s getting a headache. “I’m just trying to help. I don’t want you to make the same mistakes I did at your age.”  
  
“Mistakes like having a kid, you mean.”  
  
“I didn’t say that.”  
  
She didn’t have to. Vanessa already knows. She refuses to cry about it any more.  
  
Mom sighs. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how we always end up - I’m sorry.”  
  
“Yeah,” says Vanessa, deflating. “Me too.”  
  
***  
  
She’s got a different sort of restlessness as she gets older, but it’s always still right there. Now she knows herself better she can use it to her advantage: Vanessa is a one-hit KO with a spiked heel jammed down into the top of someone’s sneaker, a slim and jewellery-studded hand twisting a shirt collar just a little too hard round someone’s neck to spit rejections in their ear and she stands taller than them all. They can’t even fuckin’ touch her: she’s too hot in every sense of it, letting herself smolder just enough to remind them that she can be an inferno if they push her.

There’s a studio downtown somewhere that wants her to make it home. It’s driving her insane. She could be long gone now except that her mom always needs something, always apologetic but never quite enough to not ask. _Vanessa, I’m really sorry but I can’t make the rent_ and _Vanessa, if you can just cover groceries for these next few weeks while I sort this whole mess out_, but the mess never gets sorted out for very long.

They don’t fight any more, not like they used to. It maybe should seem better but it doesn’t. Her mom’s lost the first part of ‘functional alcoholic’, depressed and basically housebound, and it’s Vanessa who has to pick up the slack.  


“Vanessa…I hate to do this but I need some money for the bills? It’s only for this month, I swear.”

Things could be so much worse. But God, she needs to leave.

_This is the last time_, she says to herself, and cuts her paycheck again so her mom can keep the lights on.

She says that every time. It’ll be true eventually, it’s just complicated. Vanessa loves her mom, or at least she thinks she probably does, but she’s sick of this post-work routine, collecting the unopened warnings about money owed sitting in the mailbox, tipping dregs from out of vodka glasses down the sink, draping a blanket over her mother who is curled up on the sofa. If Vanessa’s mom didn't want her to make the same mistakes, didn’t want her to be tied down to responsibility too young and sacrificing what she wants to take care of someone who can’t do it for themselves, how the hell did they end up here?

“V’nessa,” mumbles Mom, and it’s not clear if the slurring is from sleep or too much drink. “‘m sorry. I am. I’m sorry.”  
  
She says that every time. Nothing ever changes.  
  
“I know,” says Vanessa, with a sigh.  
  
“Don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Fuck, that’s so not fair. She bites down on her anger, she’s getting better at that these days. But she didn’t sign up for this. Vanessa doesn't like being obligated, Vanessa doesn’t like being weighed down, Vanessa burns and burns and burns without ever taking off but the fuse is getting shorter. The rattle of the train when she lays in bed at night is a pulling in her bones enticing her to see who she can be when she’s not tethered to the barrio.

***  


She’d always said to herself that when she left she’d leave clean, start over completely, they’d never see her again. Usnavi ruined all that, without even knowing what he’d done. She was making calls and signing papers, she was almost ready to go…then there was the whole thing with the lotto, and she nearly lost him to DR, and it hit her like she’d jumped in front of the train instead of getting on it: she didn’t want to let him go.

He’d always been a bright point in Vanessa’s day, he was the whole reason she was here with boxes packed and a place that was just for her. Dani had said he had sworn her to secrecy that it was Usnavi who sorted things out with the credit check. It wasn’t something he did to get Vanessa to like him, to get her to be with him. He just did it to make her happy, because he’s Usnavi.

So the new start ends up not being quite as thorough as she’d planned it, but over time it becomes clear that Usnavi isn’t a rope tying her back to her past at all: they’re elastic, always bound together but with enough give to still wander alone. They’ve got their own lives too.

Dani sometimes comments when she visits that they’ll surely be moving in together soon, but even after two amazing years with him the time just isn’t right. Vanessa’s not saying never, but the bodega is Usnavi’s home right now and the studio is hers, they’re both where they need to be for the moment.  


She didn’t know commitment could be this way. It always seemed like it would be all or nothing. Turns out, she can have her freedom and her space and her studio downtown, but she can also have this: evenings curled around Usnavi in his bed, letting his coffee and cheap soap smell surround her, losing herself in all his stories about Sonny, or the ridiculous thing some customer did today, or the new guy on the block.  
  
In fact, she hears a _lot_ about the new guy on the block. She’s never met the dude and already she knows how Ruben takes his coffee and how early Ruben starts his day and that Ruben is funny and gentle and-  
  
“-just like, insane levels of clever. Oh, man, I can’t wait for him to meet Nina! They’re both nerds, I bet they’ll love each other. I can’t wait for him to meet _you_.”  
  
“Wait, why _haven’t_ I met him yet?” she frowns. It’s been weeks since Ruben moved in, and she’s not here all the time but she’s here pretty often. Seems weird they’ve not crossed paths.  
  
“Oh,” says Usnavi, suddenly awkward. “He, uh, he don’t really come out when it’s busy, you know?”  
  
“Kinda shy or something?”  
  
“Yeah, I guess he sort of is.” Usnavi gives her a quick worried glance like she’ll think less of Ruben for that. “But he’s great, really he is. He just needs someone to tell him it, and then he’ll get more confident.”  
  
Looks like Usnavi’s taken that role on for himself already. And Vanessa doesn’t know how she missed it til now but she’s seen him look this way before: she sees it aimed in her direction every time she walks into the bodega and pulls him in to kiss him.  
  
No me _diga_, she mouths to herself as he turns his back to shut the light off.

***  
  
It isn't something Vanessa brings up right away, because she’s not got a lot of evidence to go on and because what does it even mean, if your apparently-straight boyfriend has feelings for a man, but after the first time she meets Ruben and sees the two of them together it’s obvious that a) she’s so incredibly goddamn right, and b) that Usnavi is probably not going to figure this out on his own but it’s really something he should know about himself. If nothing else, so that she can tease him about his big stupid crush on a boy who maybe ain't as identical as she made him out to be, but he does look kinda like him and it’s just too fucking funny.

When she lets Usnavi in on it, she can’t help but laugh at his dumbstruck expression as things click into place. But she holds him close when he says “that- that- but I _can’t_,” shaking his head wildly.  
  
“Babe, it’s okay. I don’t mind that you like dudes too. I’ve kind of suspected for a while.”  
  
“No, no, that’s not -well, that part is kind of a huge fuckin' shock, yeah, but I mean that I can’t, it’s… but I love _you_,” he says, with an anguished face. All her fears about him maybe wanting Ruben more than her that she’s been trying to keep pushed down dissolve at that look. When did she become so sure that he loved her? Two years ago this would've torn them apart, and now she just says, "oh, Usnavi, I know _that. _It’s okay. We’ll figure it out.”

They don’t own each other, after all. He can love her and also like Ruben, and if anyone has love to spare, it’s Usnavi.

***

The more she gets to know him, the more she realizes this too: if anyone needs a little extra love it’s Ruben. Holy shit, is it Ruben. He’s sweet but _Christ_, he’s sad, and he tries to hide himself with his sleeves over his hands and his head ducked low but the way he unfurls when Usnavi pays attention to him, talking just a little louder and standing just a little taller, she _can’t_ feel jealous of that. She’s never been shy herself but she remembers too well the days when Usnavi seemed like the only injection of color into her long tedious mornings at the salon.

It helps that, although she’s never been able to let affection pour off her in a wave the way Usnavi does, as she gets to know Ruben he seems to feed off whatever energy she gives off too, grinning when she comes to visit and sitting up straighter in his spot atop the counter, like he's just as happy to see her as he is Usnavi. She’d sort of imagined him to be a quieter, less confident version of Usnavi, maybe because they look alike, but he’s got an edge she didn’t expect that Usnavi’s never had. Ruben’s far more willing to join in with all her acerbic observations about people passing by the window, Ruben's got a look that passes over him sometimes like he’s burning on the inside. It doesn’t fit at all with the way he holds himself or the volume of his voice.  


This much she’ll say about him, he’s never quite predictable. They’re both in the bodega with Usnavi out back signing off on delivery. It’s a hot day, late spring heating up the Heights so Vanessa’s feeling a summertime kind of stunning in sunglasses and her shortest skirt. The usual downsides apply. She’s wandering idly round the aisles while Ruben flips through a magazine up front when some shiny-biceped creep in a muscle tee stands right up close beside her.  
  
“Damn, ¡estás buena! It’s nearly as hot as you are out there.”  
  
She turns her back to browse a different shelf like she hasn’t even heard him, lazily reading the back of a pop tart box.  
  
“You wanna get out of the heat? How about you come back to my place, I’ll blast the A/C, we can maybe take some layers off.”

Is this guy for real trying to use the fact he has air conditioning as a pickup line? Jesus, some people got no game. “Nah man,” she says, in a bored voice. “I’m good.”  
  
“Aw, come on, I’ll make it worth your time.”  
  
“Nope. Woah now, back the fuck up,” she says, holding up a hand as he tries to step way too much into her space, tries to put his arm around her shoulders. Then there’s someone else’s hand on the guy’s chest too, pushing in between them. It isn't Usnavi.

“She said no,” says Ruben firmly and his voice is rock solid even as his eyes are huge with fear.

The guy looks between them for a second but decides it’s not worth the effort. “Alright, whatever, I was only kiddin' anyhow,” he mutters, and wanders off to go be repulsive at some other unlucky woman.

Ruben breathes out a loud, slow exhale, eyes still kinda bugged out as he watches him leave the store.

“I coulda handled that.” Vanessa doesn’t mean to sound ungrateful. Actually, she meant to say _thanks_, but she doesn't need Ruben to fight this barely-even-a-battle for her. Look at him, he’s almost fucking shaking, does he really think he could’ve dealt out anything she couldn’t do better?

“I know you could,” Ruben says, with a tiny unexpected laugh. “I saw you throw a can of soda at a guy from across the street last week. You’ve got a good arm.”

“Oh,” she says. “So why get involved? Like, no offence, but you looked about two seconds away from shittin' yourself. Still do, actually, are you okay?”

Ruben blows the question off, face twisting in an unreadable expression, and shrugs. “You said no. He should’ve listened.” His mouth is an unhappy line and he’s not meeting her eye. “_Someone_ should step in.”

_For fuck’s sake, just say it, Vanessa._

“Thank you,” she manages. It sounds more forced and fake than she intended.

***

There’s a day when she comes in and Ruben’s sat alone in his usual spot. He doesn’t react to the bell, staring vacantly just above the door with his mouth slightly open.

“You’re gonna catch insects if you leave your face like that,” she says, leaning next to him.

“Hm?” he replies, vague, and it takes a moment for his eyes to focus. “Oh. Vanessa, hey. Sorry. I was miles away.”  
  
“Anywhere nice?” she asks lightly.  
  
“Not really,” he says, and doesn’t smile. He looks tired and dishevelled, like he hasn’t really slept.

There’s just something about Ruben that gets right under her skin sometimes, makes her want to find out why he is how he is. Looking him over, in his black jeans and a dark navy-blue sweater - in this fucking weather, what the hell - with dark circles under his eyes, he looks desaturated under the sunlight from the window. She’s heard him tease before about Usnavi being tiny but even though Ruben’s carrying more weight on his bones, Vanessa really thinks Ruben is the small one. Usnavi takes up the entire space of whatever room he’s in, he’s never learnt how to contain himself. Ruben is always hunched inward and compressed like he never learnt how _not_ to, like there’s too much feeling trapped underneath his skin with no way for it to escape.

He should really let some pressure off.  


Sometimes, even though Vanessa is happy with the way things are going, she wakes up and there’s a memory of that constant searing prickle of adolescent agitation in her veins. It’s not quite enough that she’d say it haunts her, just that sometimes her mind wanders back that way while she sleeps so that the whole next day feels like its underlaid with the rattle of the train and the faint scent of vodka.

What place does Ruben’s mind wander back to? For all the time Usnavi spent talking about him and despite how often they bump into one another in the store, Vanessa actually doesn’t know very much about his life before this. She’d asked Usnavi about it, after that time Ruben intervened with the creep hitting on her. There was something about his tight, sad expression that had made her feel uneasy.  
  
“He’s had a rough time,” is all Usnavi would say. “It really ain't mine to talk about.”

There’s no reason for Vanessa to care this much but she does. Even more so because Usnavi’s holding out on her. It just makes her want to poke at things until she figures out whats going on.

She jumps up on the counter next to him. _Okay, Ruben, tell me something I don't know._

“Y’know, I can’t believe I’ve never asked this,” she says, voice perfectly casual. “But how did you end up moving to the Heights, of all places?”

Ruben swings his legs while he thinks. “I guess I just wanted to start over,” he replies, finally. “I wanted somewhere that was _mine_. If that makes sense.”

Which isn’t really an answer, but it _is_ very intriguing and Vanessa never did like boys who bore her. Besides, she knows what he means.

“No, I get that,” she says. “I really get it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments make me extremely happy and encourage me to write more!  
Come say hi to me on [tumblr](https://thisstableground.tumblr.com/)!


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